Lol Yup full time cook here, but I guess I could have project knife to work before 10:15 lol
Polishing knives
- Thread starter T85
- Start date
Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:
Hahahahahaha you guys are making me doubt my decision to mirror my knife, I mean how painful can it be
Nice, I have the sandpapers in the mail. I think I will go with paper. Not sure I want to buy stones.
Honyaki +sujihiki + mirror = ?Honyaki? Sujihiki? Yanagiba? Mirror polish?That sounds very crazy. I know how to mirror polish a blade very fast and easy but i don´t tell you how to rape your Honyaki knife
Garner Harrison
Well-Known Member
I might be wrong here but with the paste stuff, that sounds like you could just whip out an orbital sander with a appropriate pad and go nuts with it 
Some people use similar stuff even for sanding. I never did, so can't really comment.
Well I guess I’m going to do one just to cross it out from the list, sandpapers should be here tomorrow so it’ll time to climb the mountain
JAMMYPANTZ
Active Member
Thank you, I’m going to do that! Looks like I would also make it a lot easier
inferno
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) <*))))><
its very hard and time consuming to mirror polish on stones. since you need to keep it all flat during the trip. it can be done no problem but its a lot faster with sandpapers imo. at about 1200 its starts to get shiny and at about 1500 or so it starts to get mirrory. then you only have about 8500 to go. it took me about 3-5h to get a mac pro santoku to 1500. and i had everything from 80 to 1500 grit.
on stones you would be looking at multiples of this time at the very least. since you also need to flatten every surface. but i have taken bevels up to 12k.
then i sent it to my buddy that used a drillpress and cheap kit with 3 different polishing compunds and a cloth disc and it took him about 10 minutes to actually really mirror polish it with that gear....
machines man, machines....
on stones you would be looking at multiples of this time at the very least. since you also need to flatten every surface. but i have taken bevels up to 12k.
then i sent it to my buddy that used a drillpress and cheap kit with 3 different polishing compunds and a cloth disc and it took him about 10 minutes to actually really mirror polish it with that gear....
machines man, machines....
So, I often find that I go through one of those small pieces of sandpaper like every 3 minutes. Do you keep attaching them again and again? If so, how do you do this quickly?
JAMMYPANTZ
Active Member
Hmm how are you sanding and polishing your knives and how long are you spending on each grit level? I've only needed to reattach new pieces of sandpaper once every 3-4 polishes of my Shig, so for me, it's definitely longer than 3 minutes per sandpaper...The suggestion to sand in one direction is not only effective in achieving a really nice polish, but I've also found that sanding in one direction maximizes and maintains the integrity of the sandpaper as well (for the most part). If you can still see metal removal, I'd refrain from swapping out new pieces of sandpaper. Until I don't really see any metal removal at all, for example on the lowest grit, I haven't really found a need to replace it. I think it also depends on how long you want to spend polishing your knives and how much finesse you want out of it. To take a knife from 300 to 2500 usually takes me like 2.5 hours and sometimes more if I missed a scratch...which my wife detests haha.
When I finish each grit level, I make sure to rinse off any metal from the sandpaper. And when I do need to replace the sandpaper, I'll heat up the sandpaper with a blowdryer and remove the existing piece and reattach a new one with a little bit of epoxy glue. I have found, though, that I need to replace the lower grits more frequently than the higher grits. Hope this helps!
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2018
- Messages
- 334
- Reaction score
- 321
Been watching a youtube channel lately called "knife repair" this guys got a nice shop setup and does real nice work - uses a combination of sandpaper and stones to fix and polish knives.
Hmm, yea I don't know if I have that much patience. I have some elbow tendinitis issues, so I'd rather sacrifice loads of sandpaper than lengthen the polishing process. While metal does still come off for a long while, I feel like the cutting power of the sandpaper significantly decreases after a few minutes. Maybe what I'm noticing is just the very peaks of the grits being shaved off, and I should keep going with it, but to me it's not really worth it to eke out every last bit of polish from a piece of paper.
Nice done !!
I find it much more enjoyable and takes considerably less time to unpolish them.
I can't imagine doing it without a flap wheel and compounds. 100% hand polish? There be madness there.
i believe you need the scratch pattern to go in one direction so an orbital (excuse my pun) "wouldn't be up to scratch"I might be wrong here but with the paste stuff, that sounds like you could just whip out an orbital sander with a appropriate pad and go nuts with it
inferno
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) <*))))><
i went shapton pro 220, glass 500, pro1k, pro2k, kit4k, glass gray 6k, pro8k, naniwa ss 12k.
also tried conticule and uchigumori on it just for fun.
from some angles it looks like a mirror but from some angles you can see all the scratches.
and yes, thats a hattori handle you see there
Badgertooth
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2015
- Messages
- 2,664
- Reaction score
- 655
I think you want to block this one out in weeks rather than hours if you are going to do it properly. There’s no short cuts as I’ve tried most of them.
Step 1.
Knock the handle off
Step 2.
Clamp your knife to a 2x4 then fix the 2x4 in a vice. This is my ratchet home setup:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxZjA_7gpyi/?igshid=1pua8jlb55nby
Raise the blade off the 2x4 with 2 pieces of balsa wood
Step 3: 180 grit paper tang to tip without doing the scrubby scrubby that results in a type of scratch called j-hooks. You want clean horizontal lines.
Step 4 a: Cross hatch with 220. That’s right you’re going to completely bumsex your pristine 180 horizontal finish
Step 4 b: 220 tang to tip until you can’t see any leftover scratches from 4 a
Step 5: rinse and repeat with
320
400
600
800
1200
2000
Step 6: 5 micron diamond paste applied with hard felt or balsa
Step 7: 3 micron diamond paste as above
Step 8: 1 micron paste
Stwp 9: .5 micron paste
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwd7S1JBGwO/?igshid=i71ywsv4fw66
Luftmensch
Senior Member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2017
- Messages
- 2,316
- Reaction score
- 3,186
Out of interest... why no scrubby scrubby?
When I want a brushed finish I will aim for clean horizontal lines.... when I am working up the layers they only need to largely go in one direction. The j-hooks will eventually be erased by the next grit. Am I missing something?
harlock0083
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2013
- Messages
- 386
- Reaction score
- 28
I might be wrong here but with the paste stuff, that sounds like you could just whip out an orbital sander with a appropriate pad and go nuts with it
I'd worry about heating up the blade too much on the orbital sander. If it's the last step to polish up with paste then it should be fine. I used a hand drill with buffing wheels attached before okay.
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2018
- Messages
- 610
- Reaction score
- 393
What is your approach when or if the handle doesn't come off or is an integral bolster?
I've been working on a knife over the break. The J hook scratches end up being deeper than the linear scratches, so it takes longer to remove them when you go up in grit
I built a machine for sanding out my knives that really speeds up the process. Instead of me moving the sandpaper back and forth on the knife the machine moves the knife back and forth and I just hold the sandpaper in place. I did it on the cheap by dissecting a treadmill.
You're like the Colin Furze of the knife world
Haha Cap, I had to look him up as I didn’t know him. Funny guy for sure. I do make a lot of equipment and tools of my own design. I wanted to set up an efficient working environment before I got too deep into doing this. I’ve spent more time making equipment in this new hobby than making knives, a lot more time. I have bad shoulders and hand sanding my bevels out was killing me. This machine “I have no idea what to call it” saves me hours of sanding.
